‘A glorious Future!’ – 41 years ago, billionaire and Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad published 9 theses to define his ethos - and they reveal the culture that built the world’s greatest furniture empire

Early on, Ingvar Kamprad started preparing for his departure from IKEA.

Björn Larsson Ask/SvD/TT

Despite being one of the world's wealthiest men, Ikea's late founder Ingvar Kamprad lived a simple life.

Ingvar Kamprad's lifestyle and management philosophy represent core values that are still part and parcel of his furniture chain: simplicity, cost efficiency and empathy.

Ikea's principles weren't born by chance. Already in 1976 Kamprad wrote down 9 theses that would inform the company's culture even after his departure.

Many of them sound strikingly modern 40 years on.

Ikea has become a veritable behemoth with hundred of stores around the world and a revenue of about 35 billion euros. The founder, Ingvar Kamprad, attributed Ikea’s success in part to his common sense.

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“I am a bad decision-maker, a bad organizer and I have an awful lot of handicaps. I think I have a low IQ, but on the other hand, our Lord has been has been merciful and given me a fairly good common sense”, he said in the 80’s to a Swedish tv-channel.

The death of Ingvar Kamprad in January was mourned by the company he founded as a 17-year-old in 1943. But Ikea itself stressed that business will continue as usual.

"Most of the executives at Ikea have worked here for 20 or 30 years and are vaccinated with Ikea’s values”, said Lars-Johan Jarnheimer, chairman of the board for Ikea's holding company Ingka Holding, regarding the future direction of Ikea after Kamprad’s departure.

Most of the executives have probably read and taken to heart a text Ingvar Kamprad wrote back in 1976, called “A Testament of a Furniture Dealer”. In it, he tried to put to text the common sense values of discipline, frugality and simplicity he wanted to instill in Ikea, to guide it towards the future.

Here are Ingvar Kamprad’s nine theses:

1. The product range – our identity

Ikea’s furniture should be well-designed, functional and sold at “extremely low prices”, cheap. Emphasis should always be on the range of basic furniture that is "typically Ikea", Kamprad writes.

Try keeping them as “simple and straightforward as we are ourselves”, he says.

Kamprad's principles - as stubborn as the MALM range.

Ikea

“In Scandinavia, people should perceive our basic range as typically IKEA. Elsewhere, they should perceive it as typically Swedish. “

Ikea is supposed to appeal to the masses and this basic policy "can never be changed", he writes.

2. The IKEA spirit – a strong and living reality

This section is dedicated to maintaining the spirit of Ikea. When he wrote his manifesto in 1976 it still lived on Kamprad, notes, but “it to must be cultivated and developed to keep with the time”.

Development, however, is not always the same thing as progress, Kamprad cautions.

“The true IKEA spirit is still built on our enthusiasm, from our constant striving for renewal, from our cost-consciousness, from our readiness to take responsibility and help out, from our humbleness in approaching our task and from the simplicity of our way of doing things.”

A job can never just be a livelihood, this section says. Because if it is, “a third of your life goes to waste, and a magazine in your desk drawer can never make up for that.”

3. Profit gives us resources

The goal is to give a better everyday life for the masses. To reach that, Ikea needs financial resources, Kamprad writes.

“The aim of our effort to build up financial resources is to reach a good result in the long term. You know what it takes to do that: we must offer the lowest prices, and we must combine them with good quality. If we charge too little, we will not be able to build up resources. A wonderful problem!”

The secret, "the foundation of our success", Kamprad writes, is rooted in this: The stubborn will to find cost savings in everything and to develop products more economically.

4. Reaching good results with small means

Designing a desk costing 5 000 kronor is not a challenge, but only the most highly skilled can design a good desk costing 100 kronor, Ingvar Kamprad writes, noting that the worth of solution can only be determined in relation to its cost.

“Time after time we have proved that we can get good results with small means or very limited resources”, he adds.

IKEA METOD KUNGSBACKA.

Ikea Press

Here he waxes philosophical on the modern propensity to solve problems with money:

”Waste of resources is one of the greatest diseases of mankind. Many modern buildings are more like monuments to human stupidity than rational answers to needs.”

5. Simplicity is a virtue

Ikea does “not need fancy cars, posh titles, tailor-made uniforms or other status symbols”. Instead, simplicity will lead the way.

This cuts to the heart of the organizational philosophy of Ikea, which according to the Swedish futurologist and management guru Kjell Nordström has enabled it to build a world-class organization with “a bunch of average people from the Swedish country side.”

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Simplicity of routines should also be Ikea’s goal according to Kamprad, ranting against corporate paralysis, and about the danger of indecisiveness and deferring responsibility – which “generates more statistics, more studies, more committees, more bureaucracy.“

6. Doing it a different way

Experts would never have told Ingvar Kamprad that small community like Älmhult, situated in the Swedish countryside, could support a company like Ikea.

“Nevertheless, Älmhult is now home to one of the world’s biggest operations in the home furnishings business”, Kamprad writes.

New paths can be found and progress can be made, he writes, simply by asking the question "why", instead of accepting patterns simply because they are well established.

7. Concentration – important to our success

Ikea can never do everything and everywhere simultaneously and appeal to all tastes, Kamprad notes. Thus, concentration is needed.

For instance, when building a new market, concentrating on marketing is needed. Focusing Ikea's resources for maximum impact is so important according to Kamprad that temporarily neglecting otherwise important functions like security, is sometimes justified.

In this section, he remembers his roots in Småland, imploring his co-workers to learn to do what the people in Småland call ‘lista’.

“’Lista’ is common term in Småland; it means ‘making do’, doing what you have to do with an absolute minimum of resources”, Kamprad writes.

8. Taking responsibility – a privilege

Here, Kamprad calls on his co-workers to exercise their privilege to make decisions and take responsibility.

It has nothing to do with educational levels, financial position or rank, he notes.

“Responsibility-takers can be found in the warehouse, among the buyers, sales force and office staff – in short, everywhere. They are necessary in every system.”

The fear of making mistakes, he writes, is the root of bureaucracy, a concept he loathed.

“It is always the mediocre people who are negative, who spend their time proving that they were not wrong. The strong person is always positive and looks forward. It is always the positive people who win.”

9. Most things still remain to be done. A glorious future!

IKEA's founder Ingvar Kamprad at the inauguration of the IKEA store in Haparanda in Northern Sweden.

TT / SvD / Tomas Oneborg

“The feeling of having finished something is an effective sleeping pill”, Kamprad starts of his ninth and final thesis.

This feeling will only lead to stagnation, whereas true happiness, according to Kamprad, is not found by reaching your destination, but by being on the way.

He implores his fellow Ikea workers to keep their ambition to develop as human beings and co-workers. And to use their time wisely, because it is their most important resource:

“You can do so much in 10 minutes. Ten minutes, once gone, are gone for good. You can never get them back.”